The present invention relates to the automated and semi-automated processing of forms, in particular to the handling of change of address forms submitted by postal customers.
According to current United States Postal Service (USPS) procedures, a person wishing to have the USPS forward mail to a new address submits a Change of Address (COA) Order Form (Form 3575) that requests mail forwarding. In some cases, the postal carrier may file a COA From 3575z on behalf of a person who has moved. Form 3546 is filed in order to modify an existing change of address order. All three of these postal forms and others of similar nature are COA forms within the meaning of the present invention.
Form 3575 is normally completed by hand-printing the requested information including name, old address, new address, effective date and duration of the change on the form and submitting the form to a local post office. In many cases, the form is turned in at a local post office at the location of the new residence. In such a case, the form is first forwarded to the original delivery unit (the former local post office) where certain information is manually copied from the Form 3575 to a Form 3982, and the postal carrier for the old address manually enters the forwarding information onto a list applicable to his or her route. The Form 3575 is then forwarded to a regional center termed a Computerized Forwarding System (CFS) Unit where the information is keyed in manually by operators and entered into a regional change of address database associated with that CFS Unit. The CFS Unit prints a label indicating the customer""s new address and affixes it to the original Form 3575. The original Form 3575 is then sent back to the customer""s old address local post office where it is reviewed by the carrier for verification/correction and kept on file for a limited period of time as proof that a valid change of address order is on file for 18 months in case the forwarding order is ever questioned. Periodically, the COA data from the regional CFS Units are uploaded to the National Customer Support Center (NCSC) in Memphis, Tenn. This data is processed and combined into a single national directory and distributed weekly back to the regional CFS Units.
This process is labor-intensive, expensive and prone to error. Since the information is hand-written by the customer and transcribed at least twice by the postal service, the chance for an error is magnified. Considerable labor and expense are involved in the process of forwarding the COA form from the new local post office to the old, as often happens when a person moves without knowing in advance where they will ultimately be living. The manual archiving of the COA forms at local post offices is also costly. Since errors in forwarding do occur and no mechanism is in place at present for notifying a customer of a problem, the USPS receives numerous complaints attributable to forwarding and change of address problems via the USPS 800 number. The workload and expense of maintaining such a service would be greatly reduced if forwarding requests could be handled in a manner more efficient and less prone to error.
More recently, it has become possible to generate a COA form from the U.S. Postal Service web site (www.usps.gov) on the Internet. The COA process leads the customer through a series of form screens that solicit all of the required information and checks both the new and old addresses for validity. If one of the addresses is not in the database, an error is generated and the customer cannot go further in the process until a valid address is entered. When the form is completed, the information is printed out along with several legal notices, and the customer is instructed to sign the form and then mail it in or deliver it in person to a local post office.
While this semi-automated procedure reduces the possibility of keyboard entry errors beyond the customer""s control and prevents the customer from inadvertently entering an invalid address, public acceptance has been slow and a large number of people will continue to rely on the traditional paper COA form for the foreseeable future. The change of address order must be signed by the customer, and thus it is not possible to completely automate the change of address process through a network such as the Internet unless some means of authentication, such as a digital signature, is employed. This option may become available as an alternate route in the future, but a vast majority of persons will continue to opt for the existing change of address procedure wherein the customer need only fill out a COA form and the postal service does the rest.
A need has therefore arisen for an automated or semi-automated system for handling COA forms that reduces the level of manual keyboard entries required without radically changing the way COA forms are filled out by the postal customer. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,422,821 and 5,703,783 suggest the possibility of using a machine for the intercepting and forwarding of incorrectly addressed mail for the additional purpose of handling COA forms. However, the system described was designed for handling mail, not forms. The present invention provides a method and system specifically designed for handling COA forms and other similar informational forms.
The invention provides a method of processing an information form such as a postal change of address forms. Such forms include various data elements, such as a name of a person submitting the form and the information on which action is to be taken. In the case of mail forwarding, these data elements would include, for example, the name of the person that wishes mail to be redirected, an old address to which mail for that person was previously sent, and a new address to which mail for that person should be sent. Such a method of the invention includes the steps of:
(a) scanning a sheet having written information thereon reflecting the data elements to obtain an image;
(b) processing the image with character recognition logic to obtain text data corresponding to the written information;
(c) analyzing the text data with a computer to determine a scanning error probability therein;
(d) if the scanning error probability exceeds a predetermined limit, attempting to correct such error by editing of the text data by at least one of a computer using predetermined correction criteria and a human operator viewing the text data;
(e) checking one or more elements of the text data (such as a new address and an old address) against a first database of valid data elements (e.g., a postal address database);
(f) if the element is found in the first database, updating a second database such as a National Change of Address (NCOA) database to include at least new or revised text data; and
(g) rejecting the text data and aborting updating the second database for such text data that cannot be handled in steps (d)-(f).
The invention further provides a system for processing a series of change of information forms such as COA forms, which system is capable of carrying out the foregoing process. The system includes a scanner capable of successively scanning a series of sheets having written information thereon to obtain an image from each sheet, first character recognition logic operable on a computer, which character recognition logic generates text data corresponding to the written information from each image, error probability logic operable on a computer that analyzes the text data to determine a scanning error probability for the text data, a first database of valid data elements, validation logic operable on a computer for checking one or more designated elements of the text data against the first database, a video encoding station usable by a human operator to view, edit and/or enter the text data, and handling logic operable on a computer which includes modules for:
(i) if the designated data element is found in the first database, updating a second database to include new or revised text data;
(ii) if the scanning error probability exceeds a certain predetermined limit or the validation logic is unable to find the designated element in the first database, referring the text data to the human operator for review and editing; and
(iii) rejecting the text data and aborting updating the second database for such text data that cannot be corrected by the human operator. The computer referred to may be a single computer capable of performing all the recited tasks, a separate computer associated with each task, or a combination of single and multi-task computers.
In accordance with a further aspect of the invention, a process is provided for handling the flow of change of address information within a postal service including a multitude of local delivery units at which address changes or other change orders may be filed. Such a process includes the steps of:
(a) completing a handwritten or printed change of address information form, which form includes at least the name of the person to whom the change applies, a former address, and a new address;
(b) depositing the change of address form with the postal service, preferably with one of the local delivery units;
(c) forwarding the change of address form to a processing facility;
(d) at the processing facility, scanning the form to obtain an image thereof and creating change of address text data based on the scanned image;
(e) updating a change of address database using the change of address text data; and
(f) notifying a local delivery unit responsible for delivery of mail to the former address of the change using the change of address text data. An additional step (g) of saving the image on a permanent data storage medium for future retrieval is preferred. Preferably, step (f) generates a report or intermediate form for which the data is sent electronically, such as through a network, and the hard copy report or form is generated based on the change of address text data. These and other aspects of the invention are further discussed in the detailed description which follows.